


Pretty

by asahischinhair



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Yamaguchi Tadashi, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29299809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asahischinhair/pseuds/asahischinhair
Summary: “I wish I was a girl.” Yamaguchi spoke without thinking, but he didn’t regret what he said.Yamaguchi has always wanted to feel like a girl, he's always wanted to feel pretty like a girl. While he was comfortable being a boy, he always wondered what it would be like to be a girl, ever since a young age. As Yamaguchi grows older, and these thoughts begin to grow more serious, Yamaguchi begins to struggle with his gender identity and who he is.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Kudos: 53





	1. The Doll

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! as someone who is non-binary (and used to identify as genderfluid) i'm very fond of the genderfluid yamaguchi headcannon, so i thought i would write this! this first chapter is just Yamaguchi as a child (along with Tsukki) and i'm thinking each chapter will focus on Yamaguchi at a different age. hopefully this is something someone can relate to and if not, that's fine! everyone's experience with gender is different. i kind of inserted some of my own feelings and experiences into this but i tried to hold back, so hopefully it's not too much. hope you enjoy!

When Yamaguchi was nine, his mom took him and Tsukishima to the mall. She brought them to lots of stores, one for sports equipment and clothes, one for casual clothes, but the one Yamaguchi was most excited for was the toy store. Tsukki told him that those sorts of things were starting to become too childish for him, but Yamaguchi didn’t bother to listen, since he knew Tsukki had his eye on one dinosaur figurine in particular. As his mom became distracted by talking to her work friend she bumped into and as Tsukki scanned the shelves filled with dinosaurs, Yamaguchi walked over to the part of the store that popped out to him, the one decorated with pinks and yellows and lined the walls with pretty dolls. He walked down the aisle, his fingers brushing over the boxes that held the dolls inside. He looked at them with stars in his eyes, their beauty captivating him. The wall of boxed dolls stretched as high to the ceiling (or at least, that’s how it seemed to the young and bright eyed boy) and each of them were unique. Some with black hair, some with blonde, some wearing dresses or skirts while others donned overalls, some let their hair down while some wore pigtails, each one of the dolls had something special to them. As Yamaguchi reached the end of the aisle, he stopped. His hand resting on the box of one doll that caught his attention. Her deep brown curls rested neatly on her shoulders, one lock of hair curling into a circle on her forehead. She wore a pink dress with small straps, a white blouse underneath and black strap on shoes on her feet. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. Yamaguchi looked deeply at her face, her eyelashes were long and perfectly framed her brown eyes, her lips were pouty and small, and she had dozens of freckles plastered across her nose. Yamaguchi took his hand away from the box and touched his face where his own freckles spotted and dotted just like hers. Yamaguchi smiled and grabbed the box, running over to his friend.  
“Tsukki, Tsukki! Look, doesn’t she look like me?” Yamaguchi smiled as he held up the box, resting his chin on the top. Tsukki looked at Yamaguchi, down at the doll, then back up at Yamaguchi.  
“I guess,” he said, turning back to look at the dinosaurs, “it’s a girl’s toy, though.” Yamaguchi tilted his head. Girl’s toy? What did he mean? Yamaguchi turned the box towards himself and looked down at the doll.  
“I want it.” Yamaguchi mumbled. Tsukishima whipped his head in surprise, his eyes stretched slightly wide. But he didn’t say anything against it. Instead, he stared at his friend for a moment, thoughtfully, and then clicked his tongue.  
“Then go ask your mom.” His friend said, grabbing a T-Rex from a shelf that Yamaguchi couldn’t reach. Yamaguchi beamed at him and nodded, dashing over to his mother and holding up the box.  
“Mama! Mama! Look! She looks just like me!” He said with a closed eyes, toothy smile. “Can I get her?” Yamaguchi’s mom laughed, and so did her friend.  
“Oh, sweetie, don’t you think you’d be better off with a boy’s toy?” Yamaguchi’s mom said with another chuckle, placing a hand on his head. She sighed after laughing, shaking her head.  
“But I want this one…” Yamaguchi trailed off with a pout.  
“Tadashi, go put that back. Have Kei help you pick something out, alright?” His mom turned him around by his shoulders and gave him a gentle nudge. As Yamaguchi walked away, he could hear his mom laugh with her friend “Could you imagine? My son with a doll like that?”

Yamaguchi didn’t see the big deal. It was just a toy. He was a kid, it was natural for him to want to play with toys. That was the toy he wanted, so why couldn’t he have it? Why did it matter so much that he was a boy? He liked the doll. He wanted the doll. He thought that she was pretty, and he liked that she looked like him. He wished he could look more like her, he wished his hair was just a little bit longer, that it had just a little bit more volume to it. Yamaguchi pulled a strand of hair at the front of his head and pulled it down between his eyes right where one of the doll’s curls had been. When he let go, the hair moved back to its original position, swooped to the side, out of his face. Yamaguchi looked down in his lap and picked up the robot toy he eventually begrudgingly picked out and threw it across the room.  
“I hate it.” He said and flopped backwards onto his carpet, staring up at the ceiling. Tsukishima sat on Yamaguchi’s bed and observed his new dinosaur toy. He glanced over at Yamaguchi and sighed.  
“I know. That’s the seventh time you’ve said so.” Tsukki acknowledged.  
“I just wanted that doll!”  
“I know.”  
“My mom was being so unfair!”  
“I know.”  
“I wish I was a girl.” Yamaguchi spoke without thinking, but he didn’t regret what he said. Tsukishima perked up at the comment and looked at him intently.  
“What do you mean by that?” He asked. Yamaguchi shot back up to sit cross legged and looked at Tsukishima.  
“It’s just that both you and mom said some comments about how it was for girls! Because I’m a boy, I couldn’t have it.” Yamaguchi sputtered. Although it was true he wanted the doll, Yamaguchi wondered if that was the only reason he said he wanted to be a girl. Yamaguchi thought about the dress the doll was wearing and how pretty it was. He wanted to feel pretty. He wanted to wear that dress. He wanted to look like that doll.  
“Don’t say stuff like that to other people.” Tsukishima said bluntly.  
“What? Why not?”  
“They’ll make fun of you.” Tsukishima looked back at the dinosaur toy. “I don’t want people to make fun of you for that.” Yamaguchi slightly smiled. He didn’t fully understand why someone would make fun of him for it, but he trusted Tsukishima’s judgement, after all the boy was a lot smarter than he was.  
“Thanks, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi said, Tsukishima only nodded in response and then grabbed one of Yamaguchi’s mangas from off his shelf and began to flip through it. Yamaguchi looked down at his hands. He liked being a boy, that was true, but he couldn’t help but think about how much more he would enjoy being a girl. Yamaguchi thought about all the things he would do to style his hair, all the pretty dresses he would wear, all of the dolls he would have. He wouldn’t be teased for acting “girly” and he wouldn’t be told to “man up” or to act like a boy. Yamaguchi wished he was a girl. “Hey, Tsukki?”  
“Yeah?” Tsukishima responded, glancing away from the manga for a moment, before turning his gaze back towards the pages.  
“You don’t think I’m weird, do you?” Yamaguchi muttered, turning his head away from Tsukki. “For what I said?” Tsukki paused for a moment, setting the manga down.  
“You’re definitely weird, Tadashi,” He said “but, not for what you said.” Yamaguchi looked up at him with a big grin on his face.  
“Thanks, Tsukki.” 

Once it was dark out, and Tsukishima had gone home, Yamaguchi started to think about all of the things he would do as a girl. He looked down at his hands and envisioned bright neon colors on his nails, he looked up into the mirror and thought about all of the makeup he would wear, just like his mom. He thought about the clothes he would wear. All the pinks and purples, the dresses and skirts, the ruffles and folds and everything that would make him look pretty.  
Yamaguchi slowly opened the door of his bedroom and peeked his head out, checking down the long dark hallway. His mom’s door was closed and no light peered from the bottom of it. Assuming she was asleep, Yamaguchi tiptoed out of his bedroom and over to the office, where the computer screen still illuminated brightly on top of the wooden desk. On the nights where his mom would work late into the dark hours of the morning, she often forgot to turn the computer off before crashing into a deep sleep. Yamaguchi climbed into the chairas quietly as he could and opened a new tab. His fingers lingered over the keyboard, unsure of what to type. He knew what he wanted to look for, but he wasn’t sure how to find it. Hoping it was enough, Yamaguchi typed “doll with freckles” into the search bar and pressed enter. He clicked on the images tab, and unfortunately, did not recognize a single doll’s face. However, although he didn’t see the doll at the store, he marvelled at all the dolls he saw on the screen. Like the dolls he saw earlier, they were all unique, they all had something special to them, but they all had freckles. Just like Yamaguchi. Something Yamaguchi had been teased for looked so beautiful on plastic. It made him feel pretty. Smiling to himself, he looked at the dolls for a lost amount of time, and although he never saw the doll he wanted to see, Yamaguchi went to sleep with all the other pretty dolls burned into his memory, the smile on his face never leaving.


	2. Spotlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! i've realized i never gave myself an actual like updating schedule, but i think i'm going to try updating every week? who knows  
> thank you so much to everyone who has read so far! i honestly wasn't expecting this to get any attention at all, so thank you to everyone who has left a kudos or read at all! makes my heart happy :'0
> 
> tw for bullying and minor depictions of violence this chapter! (idk if violence is necessarily the correct term for what happens, but the part where there's bullying gets physical)

Middle school was nothing short of difficult. Yamaguchi joining the volleyball team with Tsukishima excited him, he loved playing volleyball, especially with his best friend, but when those kids who would tease him and push him around in elementary school tried out for the club, it took everything in Yamaguchi to not run away and quit volleyball forever. The day of tryouts, the boys trapped Yamaguchi in the corner of the gym. Ridiculing and spitting out heinous words at him as he just sat there and took it all in, grimacing at every degrading insult thrown in his face. It wasn’t too long before Tsukishima showed up and got them to run away with their tails between their legs, as he’s done before, but that didn’t stop Yamaguchi from wanting to quit. Of course, Tsukishima didn’t allow that. He stood by Yamaguchi’s side, and whenever someone tried to pull something, Tsukishima was there to make sure it was put to an end as soon as it had started. The rest of the team seemed to be scared of Tsukishima, especially the three boys that bullied Yamaguchi, so he used his intimidating and cold nature to his advantage. Yamaguchi had always been grateful. 

In the locker rooms, Yamaguchi’s insecurities crept up his spine and latched onto his shoulders with claws. He hated changing in front of everyone, feeling like everyone in the room had their eyes on him made his skin crawl. It was like having a hot spotlight being flashed down only on him, grabbing at everyone’s unwanted attention. Taking off his shirt had become a process he had to prepare himself for, and he never felt prepared enough. He stayed in the deepest corner, changing with his back to everyone, not even getting too close to Tsukishima. While the boys roughhoused and whipped their shirts at their bare skin, Yamaguchi wanted nothing more than to shrink away and disappear. Occasionally, mocks and singsong teases were called over to Yamaguchi’s corner, the insecurities sinking deeper into his skin. 

One day after practice, Yamaguchi had tried to walk into his corner, when he was stopped by a wall of three bodies standing above him. Yamaguchi kept his eyes trained on the floor.

“E-excuse me…” Yamaguchi mumbled and tried to walk around the three boys, but the one on the edge pushed him back with a hand to his shoulder, making Yamaguchi stumble backwards a couple steps.

“Nah, nah, you’re not going anywhere.” The one in the middle said. Yamaguchi didn’t look up, he couldn’t look up, but he could hear the sinister grin stretched across the boy’s face. He could hear the glare that looked down at him in disgust, he could hear the chin being raised, his glare looking down at him from behind his upturned nose. Yamaguchi wanted nothing more than to disappear.

“Where’s your little loverboy to help you out now, huh?” One of the boys said, letting out a snicker. Tsukishima was not in the locker room. Yamaguchi hadn’t noticed upon entering, but once it was pointed out, he was acutely aware of the fact that he was all alone. Three boys stood in front of him, a small crowd of people watched in a half circle from behind him, but he was alone in that locker room. A spotlight shone on him, everyone else crept in the darkness that surrounded the light. All eyes were on him. He wanted to disappear.

“Please, just… just leave m-me alone.” Yamaguchi whispered, clenching his hands into fists. A beat of silence followed after he had just barely spoken, and for a second he thought they didn’t hear him. But the eruption of laughter in front of him reminded him that he was in no place to make demands. 

No one came to help him that day. The bullies shoved him around, pushed him into the lockers, pushed him onto the ground, pushed him around in a circle. It was all a blur, but Yamaguchi could’ve sworn he felt a kick, maybe even a punch once or twice. The crowd just watched. Unmoving. It was like a performance for them, one they paid to see. The spotlight expanding to show the the violent, reckless children who loved to assert power over those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. Eventually, they relented, and Yamaguchi was left in his corner to change. He didn’t change at first. He sat on the bench staring at the locker that held his clothes, his back turned to the rest of the teammates hushed whispers about what had just happened. He wished he didn’t cry. He wished he was stronger so he wouldn’t have had to be pushed around like that, he wished he was strong enough so that wouldn’t happen to him anymore, he wished he was strong enough to not silently cry in a corner. He wanted to disappear. Yamaguchi didn’t change until the bell rang, and the rest of the team dispersed from the locker room. He would be late to class, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be around anyone. 

He stared down at his hands, his skinny long fingers. He curled them into a fist and almost laughed at how pathetic it would look if he threw a punch. He dropped them into his lap and took a deep sigh. He let his thoughts drift, he thought how lucky he would be if he didn’t have to deal with those boys at all. He thought about how maybe if he just gave up on volleyball, he wouldn’t have to ever see them, though he knew that wasn’t true. They would still find him, still mess with him. He thought about how if he was stronger, he could fight back. He thought about how if he was more confident, he could tell an adult, or tell them off, or scream in their faces. The door to the locker rooms opened, but Yamaguchi kept his stare locked onto his locker, not paying any mind to whoever had walked in. The last thing he thought about lingered, just barely, in the back of his mind. Maybe if he wasn’t a boy, he wouldn’t have had to deal with them.

“Tadashi?” A familiar voice right behind him along with a hand on his shoulder made him jump up from the bench, whipping around to see Tsukishima with a confused look on his face that morphed into concern upon seeing Yamaguchi’s face and reaction. Yamaguchi quickly wiped at his cheeks. “What are you still doing in here?”

“I, uh, I was waiting for you, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi tilted his head and squinted his eyes in a smile. “Why didn’t you come back after practice?”

“Coach wanted to talk to me. Tadashi, are you alright?” Tsukishima stepped closer, his hand finding Yamaguchi’s shoulder again. Yamaguchi looked up into Tsukishima’s eyes. He looked mildly annoyed, but Yamaguchi couldn’t find a time where he didn’t. He looked concerned. Anyone else wouldn’t be able to pinpoint his expression, his face unreadable to most, but Yamaguchi could tell by the way his eyes softened, the way his eyebrows were furrowed slightly, the way his lips pursed into a line.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be?” Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his head and let out a forced laugh. “We should really get dressed, we’re late for class!”

“Tsk.” Tsukishima let out and turned around, heading towards his own locker. Yamaguchi turned around as well and got his clothes out of his locker, checking over his shoulder to make sure the other wasn’t watching before he took off his shirt. Tsukishima, as always, had his back turned to him, his own shirt lying on the bench, his glasses resting on top of it. Yamaguchi found himself staring at his bare back, studying the lines before he pulled his school uniform over his shoulders. Yamaguchi snapped out of his daze and got dressed himself, appreciative of his best friend knowing not to look at him when he took off his shirt. For a moment, Yamaguchi felt guilty. He had watched Tsukishima take off his shirt before, many times before. He knew the lines and crevices of his back, knew of the birth mark that was shaped vaguely like a heart underneath his left shoulder blade. Tsukishima never looked at Yamaguchi when they changed out of respect, but Yamaguchi always wanted to watch Tsukishima. He felt incredibly guilty. As Yamaguchi buttoned up his school uniform, Tsukishima cleared his throat. “Were those pricks messing with you again?” Yamaguchi didn’t turn around. Didn't respond. He didn’t need to. Tsukishima knew the answer. “You need to do something about them. I wasn’t here to stand up for you today and you’re clearly shaken up. Who knows what’ll happen next time when I’m not there. Turn to someone. Go to an adult. Don’t let them treat you like this. I’ll be waiting outside.” Yamaguchi heard footsteps and the door opening and closing. Frozen, he looked back down at his hands. 

_ Don’t let them treat you like this. _

Yamaguchi collected his things and walked out of the locker room, joining Tsukishima as they walked to class, Tsukishima’s words echoing in his mind like a volleyball bouncing on an empty gymnasium floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this chapter didn't focus too much on yamaguchi's internal dialogue with gender but i tried to make it apparent that he was insecure about his body, especially around boys, and that kind of ties into his feelings with gender? his gender exploration will be more in depth in future chapters i promise!  
> these next few chapters are going to focus on his middle school years, this chapter feels pretty incomplete and short but i just really wanted to post another chapter. hope you enjoyed !! <3


	3. Polaroids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter: family issues, transphoia/misogyny(? not really sure else how to describe it. happens when yamaguchi's dad comes in.)

Yamaguchi sat in the bleachers, looking down at his hands gripping his black pants as the principal went on about an anti-bullying policy being enforced in the school. Yamaguchi wasn’t really paying attention, he was too hyper aware of the eyes that would glance or stare in his direction. People knew why this assembly was happening, it was no secret that Yamaguchi was being bullied. Three months after the incident in the locker room, the bullying hadn’t relented. After many conversations with Tsukishima (albeit, conversations where Tsukishima was talking  _ at _ Yamaguchi, as opposed to  _ with _ ), Yamaguchi had finally approached a counselor about what had been happening. This was not what Yamaguchi had expected to happen after he reached out. The counselor was unhelpful to say the least. She sent emails home to the three boys and told Yamaguchi to avoid them for the time being, and then the next day they were called in for the assembly. Yamaguchi felt humiliated. This only made the spotlight shine brighter as opposed to making it blink out entirely. The need to disappear only grew every minute he sat in that gymnasium.

The principal droned on about spreading kindness and reaching a hand out to those who seemed like they needed it. Yamaguchi was sure no one wanted to be in that room, but he especially just wanted to get up and run out.

He knew where the three boys were. In the back, in the corner, where they always were during stuff like this. He didn’t have to look in their direction to know that they were there, their glares burning into the back of his skull like a lion hunting her prey. This assembly was not going to be enough to stop them, Yamaguchi knew that. He also knew there was no way anyone at that school cared enough to stand up for him. Except for Tsukishima.

Tsukishima sat next to him, his hand resting in between their thighs on the bench, an offering in case Yamaguchi needed it. Yamaguchi couldn’t reach out for his friend’s comfort. He wanted to, but he just couldn’t. He wanted to add a logical explanation as to why he wouldn’t reach out for Tsukishima, to let him know that he needed his friend’s support, but he just couldn’t. He appreciated it, though. Tsukishima was not one for expressing his affection or emotions, but Yamaguchi knew he cared. That much was obvious. He would have his hand in his pocket if he didn’t. Yamaguchi took another glance at his friend’s hand and slightly smiled, before shutting his eyes tight, attempting to will himself into nothingness.

The principal finally dismissed everyone, and Yamaguchi rushed out of there without a second thought, Tsukishima close behind. Yamaguchi ignored the confused looks and stormed out of that room. He just didn’t care anymore, he had to get out of there. He was utterly humiliated.

Yamaguchi fought against the urge to skip practice that day, although everything in him told him not to go. Everything around Yamaguchi was pitch black, the spotlight shone on him like he was the only thing that existed in the gymnasium. In the locker room before practice, Yamaguchi changed before everyone else, rushing out as the boys called out for him, not by his real name, but by words that would only be targeted towards him. Degrading words. Humiliating words. He ignored them and started his stretches in the gym as quickly as he could, Tsukishima eventually joining him, pressing on his back to help stretch. Neither of them said a word.

Nothing went right during that practice. Yamaguchi was a balloon that kept inflating, breaching past its limits, threatening to pop at any moment. He was a bundle of nerves, and it affected how he played in the practice 3 on 3 match. He was on a team with Tsukishima and a very short boy who proclaimed was going to be the best libero the world had ever seen, although, he wasn’t very good. The team they were playing against were no other than the boys who bullied Yamaguchi. Just his luck. They targeted him, sent their hardest, most aggressive serves and spikes in his direction. Yamaguchi already had a hard time with receives, but this just added onto the pressure, and he couldn’t fight back against it. He wasn’t strong enough. His team lost. He didn’t take note of the score.

Tsukishima was absent from the locker room that day. Just like a few months before, Yamaguchi entered the room alone without realizing it. Yamaguchi didn’t make it to his corner. He turned around once he reached the middle of the room, deciding he’d rather wait for Tsukishima in the gym and be home a little later rather than deal with the endless jeering and torment that would open his body and rob him of a beating heart and breathing lungs. As he walked out of the locker room, someone knocked his shoulder with their own. He didn’t need to look up to know that it was one of them and to know just how purposeful it was. It was not a nudge, it was the closest attempt at a shove they could manage. It was enough. Yamaguchi fumbled on his feet slightly, his shoulder was nothing but bones, the other's shoulder had been rough and strong. He walked out of the locker room.

Yamaguchi rested against the wall next to the locker room doors, connected to the gym. He folded his arms over chest, trying to conceal them. Yamaguchi didn’t like his arms. He tried to cover them at any chance he could get, avoiding short sleeves as much as possible. During volleyball, his arms were out for display. Their own exhibit in a museum, in the center of the room behind glass with a plaque that gave descriptive detail about the bones that jutted out from his wrists, the way you could follow the lines of his skeleton up his entire arm, the length and how they dripped further than Yamaguchi cared for, the freckles that travelled down, losing numbers from his shoulders to the backs of his hands, the hairs that covered them like blades of grass. He had tried to tell himself multiple times that no one was looking at them, no one cared. It never worked.

His eyes travelled over the gymnasium floor, finding Tsukishima talking to the coach underneath the basketball hoop that hadn’t been pulled down. Tsukishima was looking down at the floor as the coach spoke with subtle hand movements. They were already far away, but with the hushed tone the coach was using, it was like they were across an ocean, on their own little island, deserting Yamaguchi on the mainland. Tsukishima nodded occasionally, sometimes adjusting his glasses, otherwise his fingers intertwined together, he pulled at them, picked at the skin around his fingernails. He was nervous. 

Yamaguchi pulled his gaze away and focused on the lines on the floor instead. He didn’t want to be caught staring, although he fought against the string that pulled at the top of his head to look up and watch Tsukishima from afar. He followed the lines instead. The whites lining the court, the blacks forming loops and circles and jutting out in straight lines from the whites. Underneath the basketball hoops, the floor was painted a light blue, stretching out to the three pointer zone for basketball. Underneath one of the basketball hoops, Tsukishima walked away from the coach.

“What are you doing?” Tsukishima said, approaching Yamaguchi, his hands falling to his sides. Yamaguchi let out an internal breath, relieved to see his best friend dropping his hands, pushing the nervous habit to the side for the moment.

“I was waiting for you!” Yamaguchi said with a smile, his own arms unlocking from their crossed position over his chest to rest on his hips. “What was Coach talking to you about?”

Tsukishima exhaled sharply through his nose, moving towards the locker room. “Nothing. Just wanted to talk to me about blocking.” 

He was lying. Yamaguchi didn’t press, but he knew.

They walked into the locker room as people started filing out. Yamaguchi quickly made his way to the corner, somehow avoiding the boys that poured out of the room like a wave. Tsukishima kept his back turned towards Yamaguchi, and they started to change out of their practice clothing. They were alone. The silence was sticky like gum, stretching over the room and filling into the slits in the lockers, gluing to their bare skin. Yamaguchi finished changing and turned to look at Tsukishima. He was sitting on the bench, back in his school uniform, staring at his locker without his glasses, fiddling with his hands.

“He talked to me about Akiteru.” He said, not looking at Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi frowned, offering a consoling gaze towards his friend. Tsukishima still didn’t look at him.

“Oh. Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No.”

“Okay.” And that was it. Tsukishima put his glasses back on and they grabbed their stuff and left for the walk home. 

Yamaguchi kicked a pebble on the sidewalk, waiting to get closer before kicking it again. They had already dropped by Tsukishima’s house, Yamaguchi walking the final ten minutes alone. Tsukishima’s house was out of the way, he had to turn around the way they came to walk back home, but he didn’t care. He always walked with Tsukishima, filling the sticky silence with unimportant stories and games that Tsukishima would refuse to take part in, only to play along anyway. Yamaguchi had Tsukishima stumped during I Spy that day, not catching that the red thing Yamaguchi spied was Tsukishima’s bag. Or maybe he knew and didn’t say, letting Yamaguchi win. He probably knew.

Yamaguchi’s thoughts drifted towards Tsukishima’s brother, their strained relationship. Yamaguchi hadn’t known Tsukishima for long before they went to the game, before he saw Akiteru’s distraught stricken face across the gymnasium, but he knew that before that, Tsukishima thought the world of his brother. Tsukishima didn’t talk about him much, but when he did, it was old stories, from when he was younger. Listening to music with him, playing with the wooden swords Akiteru had bought, tossing a volleyball back and forth. Yamaguchi often wondered what it would be like to have an older brother, he would probably be tall, taller than Yamaguchi, and he would probably give Yamaguchi a rough time for always being so nervous. But he’d be protective, supportive. He wouldn’t let anyone mess with Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi did, however, have a younger sister. She was a year younger, still in elementary school, but the way she talked to him, gave him lectures with her hands on her hips, made him feel like the younger sibling. She looked a lot like his mother. Dark hair that cascaded her shoulders, dark eyes that were almost black but still shined with brightness, small lips that formed into a natural pout, and even more freckles than Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi could only wish he looked like his mother. She was beautiful. Her beauty captivated everyone, it engrossed strangers as she walked by, it lured people in. Her beauty was warm, inviting. The only beautiful thing that passed down from his mother to Yamaguchi were the freckles. He looked like his dad. Sharp features, big, almost catlike, eyes, a pointed chin, his upturned nose, the green tint in his hair. All thrusted upon him from his father. Yamaguchi was not beautiful like his mother. He was told by many he was handsome, handsome and dapper just like his father. He hated hearing that. 

His sister was loud, courageous, and unapologetic. She took the world by storm with her presence. Demanding attention and basking in it. Yamaguchi Akiko was larger than life, and Yamaguchi Tadashi was very, very small. He felt shrunken, as small as the pebble that skidded across the sidewalk. He envied his sister for a lot of things, the way she shone under a spotlight as well, but with confidence. Her spotlight wasn’t isolating, it wasn’t shining to shame her, it was to illuminate her. The world fell dark around her like she was the only thing that mattered. She wore confidence as if it were a casual sweater, she walked everyday with the snugness of warm confidence.

When Yamaguchi was seven, Akiko begged him to play dress up with her. It didn’t need begging. It didn’t take much convincing. Akiko put him in a dress that was just a little too small for him and made him squeeze into her flats. She tied his hair up on the top of his head and put it in a bow. She even borrowed their mom’s make up, brushing his face with poorly applied blush that was a little too heavy. He commented how he looked like a strawberry, his freckles like seeds. When Yamaguchi looked in the full length mirror, he couldn’t stop the beaming grin from stretching wide across his face, his teeth shining light into the room and illuminating his reflection. His dad wasn’t home yet. His mom laughed boisterously, told him he looked cute, and snapped a few pictures of the children together with a polaroid. Yamaguchi felt really pretty. Akiko told him again and again how he would be such a pretty girl, how she wished she had an older sister, how she wished he was her older sister. Yamaguchi was floating, he lifted up and passed through the ceiling and sat on the clouds, the yellow poofy dress flowed in the breeze and danced around his body, the picnic blanket pattern hugging him.

His dad demanded he took it all off the second he saw him. 

“Oh, c’mon, he’s just having fun. Look at these pictures! Doesn’t he look cute?” Yamaguchi had heard his mom say from their bedroom as he rubbed off the blush from his cheeks in the bathroom, his sister sitting on the closed toilet lid beside him, holding the dress in a bunch.

“He’s a boy, he shouldn’t be wearing that shit.” His dad barked in response, Yamaguchi could imagine his snarl. Imagine him showing his teeth that were sharp as razors. Yamaguchi kept scrubbing the wet rag to his cheeks.

“He’s a child.” His mother bit around the last word, cutting back at her husband. Yamaguchi kept scrubbing.

“He’s my child, and he’s a boy. He doesn’t need to be prancing around like a sissy.” His father gave up on holding back on volume, like he always had. He was too loud. Always so loud. Louder than he ever needed to be. The last word rolled around in Yamaguchi’s head, hitting the corners like the logo on the TV when nothing played. He kept scrubbing.

“Don’t call him that! Hey, what are you doing? Stop!” His mother let out gasp. “I was going to put those in the photobook.”

“Why would you? We don’t need to remember this.” The door opened. The door slammed. His father’s footsteps stomped down the hall, into the kitchen. He got something from the fridge then sat down in the living room. The couch groaned underneath his father and the television roared. Yamaguchi hated how loud he would watch his action movies. It scared him. He stopped scrubbing. 

When Yamaguchi walked into his parent’s bedroom, his mom sat on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes closed, her shoulders rising and falling with each forced steady breath. Yamaguchi walked closer, looking down at his feet. On the carpet, the polaroid was torn into three pieces. His grinning smile alone on one puzzle piece, the other two puzzle pieces ripping the dress he wore in half, tearing his and his sister’s bodies in two. The torn pictures made a trail, leading Yamaguchi's gaze to find the other pictures torn up as well.

“Mama?” He spoke quietly when he rested his hand on her shoulder. She let out a small breath, rested her hand on Yamaguchi’s, and looked up at him with a small smile.

“I’m okay.” She said quietly. She picked up the torn up pieces of polaroid and walked over to the trash can in the corner of her room. That trash can wasn’t emptied for a few weeks.

Neither of his parents allowed him to play dress up after that again.

After kicking the pebble one last time, Yamaguchi walked up to his house and stepped through the threshold. The house was quiet, as it always was when he got home from school. His mother was picking up his sister, his father was at work. He'd have about five minutes to himself, ten less minutes he usually had if he left on time. He usually just used that time to study before his sister ran through the house and dragged him to play with her outside or play a video game or something else, before his dad turned on the television louder than it needed to be, before his mom listened to her music from her speaker. Instead of studying, Yamaguchi pulled out his journal from below his bed. He refused to call it a diary, he ignored all the times he started an entry with "dear diary," it was not a diary. No matter what Tsukishima said, it was not a diary. Tsukishima was the only other living thing that knew of its existence. He never read it, of course, but he knew about it. He liked to tease Yamaguchi about it in private, smirking whenever he asked Yamaguchi if he was going to talk about whatever had happened that day in his diary. Yamaguchi always said no, he wouldn't, and it's not a diary, but when he went home, he wrote about it, starting the page with "dear diary,"

Still not a diary.

Yamaguchi zipped open his backpack and dug through it, looking for his pencil case. He let out a groan upon realizing he left it in his last period class. He hoped no one took it, he really liked his highlighters. He got up from his bed and walked over to his parent's bedroom. He hated that room. It was daunting and felt bare even though there was a bed, bedside tables, a chair in the corner, a dresser, mirror. The room was filled with everyday things, but none of it was given life. The colors of the furniture were muted like the walls, there were no decorations, not even a plant. The most exciting thing about the room was the sliding door that led to the master bathroom. The room was dull and cold, it shrunk Yamaguchi down to the pebble. Nothing about this room felt like the house he was raised in. Everywhere else there was a touch of the family, old drawings hung up wherever they could be, pencil marks on the wall showing the kids' heights over the years, family portraits and framed pictures from any sort of event, decorations they had picked out together. The house was alive, the house sucked in all the love the family had poured into it. His parents' bedroom refused the love. There wasn't even a picture anywhere in sight. 

As Yamaguchi got closer to the desk that rested near the brown armchair, he took note of the wallpaper that was peeling where the wall met the ceiling. He wondered if he ripped it even further if his parents would even notice.

Opening the desk drawer, Yamaguchi dug through the papers, unopened envelopes, sticky notes, cords, and whatever other junk was stored inside. He couldn't find a single pencil, even as he stuck his hand to the back of the drawer where his vision no longer reached. He felt something small and square made of a flimsy paper like material. Pulling it out of the drawer, he was met with the white underside of a polaroid picture. He turned it around and sucked in a breath. One of the photos his mother had taken of him in the dress looked back up at him, his eyes closed in a wide smile, his small hands gripping the dress at his sides. One of the photos his father hadn't found. Yamaguchi closed the desk drawer, his index finger and thumb squeezing at the corner of the picture. He blew on the thin layer of dust that collected on top of the image, his grin becoming clearer. His cheeks and nose were as red as a tomato, what he could see of his feet looked about ready to pop inside his sister's tiny white shoes, the deep red bow in his hair only matched the makeup his face, contrasting with the pastels from the rest of his outfit. Yamaguchi completely forgot about his mother's pearl necklace he had worn. He wondered if she still had it. He smiled back down at his younger self. Pocketing the picture, he walked out of the room, the reason he went in there in the first place completely forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bah!!! i really need to start figuring out a schedule for this... i will come up w/ something soon i promise. i have a few future chapters planned out and some things written here and there and i can't wait to share them. tysm for the kudos and for reading!!! mwah <3  
> edit: sometimes i see mistakes in my writing until it's far too late and i go crazy until i correct them DHSKSJ it was one minor mistake but when i saw it just now i couldn't just let it sit there.


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